Autism Awareness

When Oliver was two years old, he developed strange signs where he stopped looking at us in the eye. He would instead lick the walls and spin around in circles for sensory responses. By this time, he had two vaccines and one fever seizure. My wife and I went to school for 3 months learning American Sign Language due to Oliver being born deaf. We got really good at it the first year but Oliver didn’t respond to sign for another 3 more years. By then, he was enrolled in early education for special needs and the thought of raising an autistic deaf child was no longer a temporary gig. After the 3rd shot, he had uncontrollable energy where he would bounce off the walls and you had to throw pillows in Fri t of him to catch the fall. I developed a new sensory therapy where we would go for king car drives if hours a day to calm him before bed time. Still in diapers, not talking and barely signing, by the age of 8, the thought of taking care of a baby adult forever had been planted and watered. Daily, I took him to a local bouncing house place where he could let out his energy, but his want to grab other children’s necks and the shock reaction of parents wore me out more trying to explain that he doesn’t understand boundaries. 

Psychologists, doctors and the school were ill prepared to take on such an extreme case in a small but growing city nestled in the high desert of central Oregon. Filling out paperwork to get help from the state, county or city seemed pointless as we were told we made too much money for in-home care. The acronyms, loopholes, red tape and consistent paperwork errors were perplexing as a round robin of city and county representatives came into our home saying they can help but never offers a cell phone for instant information. That did change after puberty hit but I am getting ahead of myself. We were the first parents in Oregon to give our child medical cannabis. We had to get Oliver a state ID and go underground and meet with doctors that were on the verge of losing their licenses due to the fact that back then medical marijuanna given to children was illegal. Constant stares out the window for the police to take us away for such desperate need of medicine to calm him down was a consistent practice and the level of stress between my marriage was evident and unavoidable. 

For years, I would get stared at and heard gasps as I allowed my son to sit on top of the table instead of the chair in restaurants because that was the only way he would stay in one place. The first words out of my mouth when meeting someone and introducing Oliver became so routine I hardly knew I even said it anymore. This is my son Oliver. He is deaf and autistic. He does leant understand boundaries and he runs away if I don’t stay close to him. He’s harmless and doesn’t hurt people but likes to touch your neck as a sign of endearment. And when I explain Oliver to children who are curious? I tell him when he was born, his brain was broken. Children stare until they meet and after they understand the situation, they just want to play. Although Oliver never really played with them. He spun in circles next to them. They would grow tired and leave. Once again, he’s alone with his dad. He would cry when the kids would leave and often I would cry when I get confronted by adults who yelled at me for my son’s strange interactions. As if how dare I bring this broken child to okay with typical kids. The worst was the young couple that screamed at me to put his mask on when it actually bothers him. 

By 13, the school changed the routine. Everyone had to be 6 feet away and no one could visit the special needs ward. Oliver couldn’t see anyone’s face to read lips nor could be interact socially due to the fact everyone was wearing hazmat suits for fear of a 98% recovery rate. Oliver started hitting his head on the desk. Hard. He received his first hematoma at school and everyone was baffled. It’s puberty. It’s the masks. It’s the zoom meetings. It’s gluten. It’s sugar. It’s dairy. It’s inflammation of the brain. We heard everyone’s medical opinion but never got any real answers. I was driving to the store when Oliver started bashing his head against the window while we were in a highway. I panicked. I held him down and drive straight to a sports store. I yelled please help me I need a boxing helmet. My son is hurting himself. The staff screamed at us to put our masks on and the bystanders were giving us the evil eye. Only one person with a heart ran to get one as I fought to put his mask on while trying to get him to not hit his head on the counter.

He later told me his brother is Autistic. But that didn’t stop the cashiers from shaming me and didn’t stop the patrons for placing my panic on YouTube to receive their virtue signal couple of the day saving mankind from the antimaskers. We had masks, by the way, and wore them in stores. Just not in the car and I needed to get him a helmet before he got another hematoma. I drove home as he co ti he’s to beat his head against the car window crying and shocked at the level of hate society has grown into thanks to the lack of consequences in a virtual social network world. Even when I stand up for myself and my son, it never was enough to ease the hyenas and their mob rule of attacks and shame. Autism doesn’t belong in a narcissistic world. The irony is, autistic people lack empathy and apathy by birth and the social Justice warriors inherited it after they received their bachelors in shaming for the greater good. The hitting got worse. So bad that I had to hold his hands tight and have my arm around his shoulder everywhere we went. He’s hit his head on every counter, grocery store cart, glass freezer doors because it’s impossible to stop a 14 year old boy who somehow grew supernatural strength out of nowhere bypassing my grip. The cops were called many times. The sherif inspected my home. A sensitive care worker we wanted to hire reported us to the police for torture. 

It’s been two years now since the self injurious behavior started. Dozens of back eyes, hematomas and police reports finally got the attention of the county to actually start helping. Denied by institutes that were already full, turned down because our insurance doesn’t cover that state and even the insurance through us through hoops and loops to avoid paying any bill for inpatient treatment. I finally got desperate and took matters into my own hands and pocket. I drove my son 1200 miles to Texas to see an expert on autism. The only one that actually said they could see us and made an appointment right away. Driving for 5 days there and back, my little brother saw the trauma first hand of what a child can do when their head hurts and nothing can stop their suffering. My brother was there to hold Oliver from hitting himself and me while driving. Being a tough floor installer, he met his match with Oliver. After the trip, he cried. He knew it was bad, but my god, this is worse than any nightmare novel he could ever write. I literally saw his heart through the vibration of his mouth as he stumbled to say what words could never provide. Comfort. 

I don’t want your pity. I don’t want your money. I want our humanity back. That love for your neighbor that has turned sour. I want your compassion for the real disabled and not the online fakery of how much you donated. I want your anger to stand up for all of the new illnesses that sprang up right when industrial agriculture, genetically modified foods and the evidence of the side effects of eating plastic and poison reached our doorstep. I want that anger that the bankers have used against us like race, gender and equality to be pointed directly at them. Maybe then, we can stand up against the profit over care system and change the world ourselves. Because let’s face it, we are the savior. The people. And our future generations will be autistic if we continue to shrug our shoulders.